Are There Risks to Plastic Surgery?

Few things in the medical procedures world are risk free. If you factor in human error, bad judgment on the side of the patient and the surgeon, you get potentially bad results that could result in someone regretting the decisions made.

Plastic surgery is not risk free. It carries its own risks and disadvantages that could make you cringe. Surgeons make mistakes and even with prior planning and rigorous research, something can be counted on to go wrong at some point during the operation.

These effects could manifest during the surgery or during the post-surgery period of healing. They range from infections to nerve damage among other things.

Below are some of the things that could happen during and after the surgery:

Surgical error

Legally referred to as malpractice by lawyers when they sue a doctor, this is a result of a shoddy job mostly attributed to the surgeon doing the wrong thing. This could range from the body rejecting implants due to allergies, scarring, blood clotting and nerve damaging. These can all occur easily when the surgeon is not as skilled or careful as you may have thought and hoped for.

Sometimes they fail to tell you exactly what the surgery is going to be like and also fail to test your bodies for potential side effects that could leave you literally scarred and damaged for life.

Lifestyles of people are different. People with cardiovascular diseases or problems and smokers, drinkers and drug abusers, all face a long recovery that could stretch beyond the expected. A surgical operation requires a healthy human being. Preferably, one who hasn’t tampered too much with his or her body in ways that would cause drastic changes.

Costly bills

Plastic surgery is an expensive procedure that requires you to fork out thousands of dollars to get what you want. This could potentially end up messing with your accounts and leading to huge unprecedented financial losses.

This will in turn leads to other complications, and if you are unable to take care of your body after the surgery, you could be looking at possible permanent damage. The patient needs to recover from the surgery in comfort and observe a daily regimen of care products with religious zeal.

Always make sure that you have enough funds before rushing off to get surgery done on you. 

 

Error at the surgical table

No matter how much people plan for things and rehearse them over and over again, there can be one little thing which throws off the whole operation. This leads to emergency procedures during the originally planned procedure, and one ends up not looking like what they had planned for.

This will in turn lead to emotional and psychological problems stemming from the entire decision to get plastic surgery. Sometimes it’s not a minor deviation but a grossly misshapen and severe distortion of the part operated on, making you live with it for the rest of your life.

No one wants to live with that kind of hatred towards the doctor, feeling isolated and regretting every minute of your remaining life. It is not healthy.

    

Emotions getting messed up

When going in for plastic surgery, one runs the risk of getting results that are not what they expected. This would necessitate a second, third or even fourth and possibly fifth trip to the surgeon and if he or she fails to undo the damage, it damages the patient.

Feelings of anger, resentment and self-contempt are not uncommon and they can come from taking these risks with surgery.

It almost always doesn’t end up as you may have visualized it. There’s always that little deviation you’ll have to live with and in bad cases, a frightening face that will crush your emotions to the ground.

 

Loss of blood

Anytime you make the decision to go under the knife, you have to be aware that at some point, the surgeon might make a mistake. Blood loss could lead to organ failure and even death. Although this is rare, it is not entirely impossible.

Losing blood is usually an indicator of something going south in a really bad way. This is as stated above, a rare outcome but not an improbable one.

Sometimes when the blood loss crosses a certain line, it could lead to eventual nerve damage that will lead to numbness.

 

Pain

Patients who have undergone surgery will often complain of nausea, prolonged pain and burning sensations along the scar lines. With time and proper care, these pains are expected and should actually go away, but sometimes they don’t. This is a possible indicator that someone messed up at some point. 

Sometimes, the surgeon might leave, by accident, a tool or surgical implement inside of your body, causing an infection and blindingly painful sessions as the infections take root. It is a very real risk and it has happened hundreds of times.

People heal differently and that’s why everyone will get instructions on how long they should stay under care and ensure that they do not injure themselves.

Allergic reactions

These will range from your body rejecting whatever implants you get and reacting with the anesthesia agent. It is therefore vital that a patient be aware of all his allergies and reactions to whatever they will be exposed to at the surgical table.

Also, the post-operation care packages may contain components of medicines that your body might refuse to accommodate. It is important that you are aware of these too to ensure that you don’t make a mistake that could cost you your money or sometimes life.

 

Anesthesia and scarring

During surgery, the patient is put under anesthesia. Sometimes these anesthetic agents are allergens that could trigger a reaction with devastating results. Also the scar line is most likely, if not carefully handled, to get an infection that could lead to pain and worsening of the scar line.

 

Fluid build-up under skin

Fluids are susceptible to pressure, poking and prodding, and they will pool together under the skin causing skin discoloration and odd brown or black patches that will ruin your looks. This may be as a result of carelessness or unforeseen complications with your body.

 

Other risks

There are smaller risks that are listed below which occur later after the surgery. They include:

• Mild bleeding which would require another trip to the surgeon
• Obvious and visible scarring that is a result of new skin growing under the old skin, requiring it to be surgically peeled off
• Nerve tingling and numbness in the parts operated on due to nerve damage, which could be permanent at times

 

Bottom line

Plastic surgery carries many risks, some of which are bizarre and not worth the procedure, and sometimes they cause you to break down and experience turmoil in a whole new way that will be most likely unpleasant. It is paramount that you be careful who you go to for surgery, what your body can handle, and be sure that you really want to get this done to you.

Now that the risks have been set out, you can go for plastic surgery knowing that it could potentially end well or badly.